From now on, the Trump-Russia affair, the investigation that dominated the first years of Donald Trump’s presidency, will be divided into two parts: before and after the release of the Mueller report. Before the special counsel’s findings were made public last month, the president’s adversaries were on the offensive. Now, they are playing defense.

The change is due to one simple fact: Mueller could not establish that there was a conspiracy or coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to fix the 2016 election. The special counsel’s office interviewed 500 witnesses, issued 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants, and obtained nearly 300 records of electronic communications, and still could not establish the one thing that mattered most in the investigation.

Without a judgment that a conspiracy — or collusion, in the popular phrase — took place, everything else in the Trump-Russia affair began to shrink in significance.

In particular, allegations that the president obstructed justice to cover up a conspiracy were transformed into allegations that he obstructed an investigation into a crime that prosecutors could not say actually occurred. Although it is legally possible to pursue an obstruction case without an underlying crime, a critical element of obstruction — knowledge of guilt — disappeared the moment Mueller’s report was released.

Of course, TV talking heads are still arguing over obstruction. But with the report’s release, the investigation moved from the legal realm to the political realm. And in the political realm, the president has a simple and effective case to make to the 99.6% of Americans who are not lawyers: They say I obstructed an investigation into something that didn’t happen? And they want to impeach me for that?

The ground has shifted in the month since the report became public. Before the release, many Democrats adopted a “wait for Mueller” stance, basing their anti-Trump strategy on the hope that Mueller would find the much-anticipated conspiracy.

Then Mueller did not deliver. And not only that, Mueller’s report stretched to 448 pages, with long stretches of minutia and arcane legal argument that the public would never read. Democrats searched for a way to convince Americans that the president was still guilty of something serious.

They devised a plan to turn the Mueller report into a TV show, accessible to millions of viewers who have not read even a page of the report itself. They would call key witnesses to give dramatic testimony in televised hearings that would build support for possible impeachment.

At the same time, they would insist that Attorney General William Barr, who has allowed top lawmakers to see the full Mueller report with the exception of a small amount of grand jury material, was hiding something, and that the hidden material might reveal presidential wrongdoing.

So far, the strategy has not worked. The White House, which provided Mueller testimony and documents that might easily have been withheld as privileged, has not been so forthcoming with Congress. We gave the criminal investigator, Mueller, what he needed, the White House said, but we are not obligated to do the same for Congress.

The dispute could take a long time to settle.

In the meantime, House Democrats have been reduced to stunts to try to grab the public’s attention. At the Capitol recently, they enlisted Hollywood star John Cusack to take part in a public reading of the entire Mueller report — it took 12 hours — as C-Span cameras rolled. The event did not exactly captivate the nation.

Now, Republicans have turned the tables on Democrats by pumping new energy into their long-held desire to “investigate the investigation.” Barr, who set off enormous controversy with his statement that “spying did occur” against the Trump campaign, has taken up the cause, assigning U.S. attorney John Durham to look into the origins of the probe.

Anticipation is also building for the release of Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz’s report on the department’s handling of the case. It is probably not a coincidence that some Obama-era intelligence figures are now pointing fingers at each other over their reliance on the so-called Steele dossier, a collection of unsubstantiated allegations against the president compiled by a former British spy on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

None of this would have happened without the Mueller report’s conclusion that the evidence did not establish conspiracy or coordination. If Democrats could still claim that Trump and Russia conspired in 2016, they would still have the upper hand. But after Mueller, that claim is no longer possible, and Democratic hopes are dwindling.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/byron-york-mueller-changed-everything

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — His party may be enraged by Donald Trump’s presidency, but Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden insisted Saturday that Democrats will not defeat the Republican president if they pick an angry nominee.

Facing thousands of voters in his native Pennsylvania for the second time as a 2020 contender, the former vice president offered a call for bipartisan unity that seemed far more aimed at a general election audience than the fiery Democratic activists most active in the presidential primary process. He acknowledged, however, that some believe Democrats should nominate a candidate who can tap into their party’s anti-Trump anger.

“That’s what they are saying you have to do to win the Democratic nomination. Well, I don’t believe it,” Biden declared. “I believe Democrats want to unify this nation. That’s what the party’s always been about. That’s what it’s always been about. Unity.”

RELATED: Joe Biden on Labor Day




Biden’s moderate message highlights his chief advantage and chief liability in the early days of the nascent presidential contest, which has so far been defined by fierce resistance to Trump on the left and equally aggressive vitriol on the right. Biden’s centrist approach may help him win over independents, but it threatens to alienate liberals who favor a more aggressive approach in policy and personality to counter Trump’s turbulent presidency.

“I want aggressive change. I’m not hearing that from him yet,” said 45-year-old Jennifer Moyer of Blandon, Pennsylvania, who attended Biden’s rally and said she’s 90% sold on his candidacy. “I don’t want middle of the road.”

The event was the culmination of a three-week campaign rollout that began and ended in Pennsylvania, home to Biden’s campaign headquarters and where he was brought up. The 76-year-old native of working-class Scranton, Pennsylvania, has climbed to the front of the crowded primary field, in part by ignoring his Democratic rivals and focusing on his ability to compete with Trump head-to-head next year.

In the fight to deny Trump reelection, no states will matter more than Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, three states the Republican president carried by razor-thin margins in 2016.

Biden is betting big that voters in the Midwest and beyond will ultimately embrace his optimistic appeal.

That’s far from certain.

Biden’s campaign security team estimated that the Saturday event, which closed down a Philadelphia thoroughfare and attracted a huge police presence, drew an estimated 6,000 people. Compared with events held by some of his top rivals — and certainly Trump’s rallies — the crowd was large, but not overwhelming.

Some in his party’s energized left wing, watching from afar, were skeptical of Biden’s strength atop the field and his message of unity.

“It’s hard to imagine how Joe Biden is not angry,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the liberal group known as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has long supported Elizabeth Warren’s presidential ambitions.

“Has he been living in the Trump era? Kids are being torn away from their mothers’ arms at the border,” Green continued. “It’s completely legitimate to have righteous outrage at this horrible Trump moment in history, and to want a candidate who will channel that anger toward positive change.”

It was easy to see signs of anger in recent days as Biden courted Democratic primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina as part of his inaugural national tour. At a house party in New Hampshire earlier in the week, Biden took a question from a woman who called Trump “an illegitimate president” and said he should be impeached.

Biden jokingly asked if she’d be his running mate, before shifting the conversation to another topic. A spokeswoman later said Biden does not believe Trump is an illegitimate president.

Ahead in the polls in the early days of the 2020 contest, Biden is unlikely to embrace a more aggressive approach in the near future.

Referencing the health care fight under former President Barack Obama, he noted Saturday that he knows how to win “a bare-knuckle fight,” but later added, “We need to stop fighting and start fixing.”

“If the American people want a president to add to our division, to lead with a clenched fist, closed hand and a hard heart, to demonize the opponents and spew hatred — they don’t need me. They’ve got President Donald Trump,” he continued. “I am running to offer our country — Democrats, Republicans and independents — a different path.”

Before he took the stage, longtime admirer Bradley Skelcher, of Smyrna, Delaware, praised the former vice president’s optimistic message. But he described himself as “damn angry” about the Trump presidency.

“We need calm. You don’t want anybody like me running the country,” Skelcher said. “Somebody needs to calm us down a little.”

___

AP writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed.

Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/05/19/biden-rejects-democrats-anger-in-call-for-national-unity/23729926/

I’m expecting large hail, more flash flooding, damaging wind gusts, and possibly numerous tornadoes. We’ll see what today’s data has to say, but all signs still point to a big severe weather outbreak on Monday.

Source Article from http://www.news9.com/story/40498851/a-great-looking-sunday-but-more-severe-storms-to-come

Days after Alabama passed the nation’s strictest anti-abortion laws, President Donald Trump said he supports pro-life measures that include exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

In a series of tweets, Trump said his abortion policies are similar to those of late Republican President Ronald Reagan.

“As most people know, and for those who would like to know, I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions – Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother – the same position taken by Ronald Reagan,” Trump tweeted.

He went on to urge the GOP to stick together on the issue.

“If we are foolish and do not stay united as one, all of our hard fought gains for life can, and will, rapidly disappear!,” Trump tweeted.

Trump’s tweets are his first since the passage of the controversial Alabama law, one of several around the country designed to push the Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade, the historic 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. Alabama’s law would make it a felony for a doctor to perform or attempt to perform an abortion and does not contain an exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

The only exception in the Alabama law is abortions performed to protect the life of the mother.

Source Article from https://www.al.com/news/2019/05/alabama-abortion-law-trump-says-he-support-anti-abortion-laws-with-exceptions-for-rape-incest.html

RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian authorities say there has been a “massacre” in the country’s northern Pará state without releasing any details, while Brazilian news media say gunmen attacked a bar in Belem City and killed 11 people.

The G1 news website says police reported that seven gunmen opened fire on a bar. G1 says police also report one wounded in the attack.

A Pará state spokeswoman, Natalia Mello, says she can only “confirm” there was a massacre in the state.

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/05/19/brazil-officials-massacre-media-dead-bar/3736132002/

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/19/politics/china-trade-war-trump-rural/index.html

May 19 at 11:02 AM

President Trump is carefully distancing himself from a new Alabama law that bans abortion in almost all circumstances, even in cases of rape and incest, stressing his “strongly pro-life” credentials while aligning himself with other Republicans who also contend the statute goes too far.

In a late-night Twitter thread Saturday, Trump avoided any direct references to the law in Alabama or in other Republican-led states that have rushed to enact strict new rules against abortion designed to invite court challenges and eventually make their way to the Supreme Court.

But he underscored that his position — Trump has said he opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk — is the same as that of former president Ronald Reagan. He urged Republicans to instead stay united on the issue, which the GOP has used to go on the offensive against Democrats, particularly in the wake of a new law in New York that has expanded access to late-term abortion. 

“We have come very far in the last two years with 105 wonderful new Federal Judges (many more to come), two great new Supreme Court Justices, the Mexico City Policy, and a whole new & positive attitude about the Right to Life,” Trump tweeted late Saturday. The Mexico City policy refers to an executive order he signed in January 2017 that bars U.S. aid to any organization abroad that performs abortions or offers information about the procedure. 

He continued: “Radical Left, with late term abortion (and worse), is imploding on this issue.”

“We must stick together and Win for Life in 2020,” Trump tweeted. “If we are foolish and do not stay UNITED as one, all of our hard fought gains for Life can, and will, rapidly disappear!” 

The flurry of new antiabortion laws in Alabama, Georgia and Missouri has forced the issue of abortion onto the national political stage, with a host of Democratic presidential contenders seizing on the issue to make their case that the GOP is too extreme in trying to limit access to abortion. 

Trump is far from the only Republican, although certainly the most powerful one, to signal that the new Alabama law — which also allows a penalty of up to 99 years in prison for doctors who perform the procedure — goes too far. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said last week that the statute “goes further than I believe” with its lack of exemptions for rape and incest, and very few Republicans on Capitol Hill have been eager to weigh in with support of the law. 

The president’s relationship with the antiabortion movement had a rocky start, as activists who oppose abortion rights greeted with deep skepticism a candidate who proclaimed he was “very pro-choice” in a 1999 interview

But during his time in office, Trump has promoted and enacted policies that have delighted antiabortion groups. In addition to the Mexico City policy — also known as the “global gag rule” — Trump in 2017 signed into law a bill that gave states permission to withhold federal family planning funds from groups that provide abortion, such as Planned Parenthood. 

Last year, the Trump administration said it would draw a “bright line” separating clinics that can receive federal family-planning funds from organizations that provide abortions or referrals to abortion clinics.

Trump also supports legislation barring abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and has installed two justices to the Supreme Court — Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — who have cemented a conservative majority on the nation’s most powerful court. 

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signals-alabama-abortion-law-goes-too-far-but-stresses-hes-strongly-pro-life/2019/05/19/c8d5fe98-7a41-11e9-a66c-d36e482aa873_story.html

“Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy,” Mr. Trump wrote in a midmorning Twitter riff that included, among other things, criticism of the “Fake News Sunday Political Shows” and boasts about his judicial appointments and health care policies.

“Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents hands!” he added.

On Saturday, Mr. Amash, 39, became the first sitting Republican member of Congress to suggest that Mr. Trump’s actions, as described in the report of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, met the constitutional threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors.

“President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct,” Mr. Amash wrote in a series of Twitter messages after reading the redacted version of the 448-page report.

Contrary to the public statements and summaries offered by Attorney General William P. Barr, “Mueller’s report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment,” wrote Mr. Amash, a self-described strict constitutionalist who has considered running against Mr. Trump in the 2020 Republican primary.

It is a judgment not publicly shared by any other Republican member of Congress.

“Justin Amash has reached a different conclusion than I have,” said Mr. Romney, who has said he was “sickened” and “appalled” by Mr. Mueller’s report.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/us/politics/trump-justin-amash-impeachment.html

Soon after Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., went against the GOP consensus by claiming President Trump committed “impeachable conduct” in the form of obstruction of justice, another known Trump critic took the opposite position.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, acknowledged that while he has called out Trump when he’s deemed it appropriate, he does not believe the Mueller report provided evidence that supports impeaching the president.

AS BIDEN DOWNPLAYS CHINA THREAT, ROMNEY HAS A NEW WARNING

“I just don’t think that there is the full element that you’d need to prove an obstruction of justice case,” Romney told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, while acknowledging, “Everyone reaches their own conclusion.”

Still, Romney said he “was troubled by it,” but did not feel the allegations laid out in the report were enough to rise to the standard of an obstruction charge.

Romney specifically pointed to the element of intent, which is required as part of an obstruction charge. He said that the lack of any underlying crime — such as any conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia — makes it difficult to show that Trump’s actions were based on a corrupt intent to cover something up.

“You just don’t have the elements,” Romney said.

POST-MUELLER REPORT, JOURNALISTS RETHING HANDLING OF ROMNEY’S 2012 RUSSIA PREDICTION

Amash put forth the opposite theory in a Saturday Twitter thread, saying that he read the report, and that “President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct.” Romney said that while he has “respect” for Amash, he disagrees with his conclusion.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/romney-impeaching-trump-not-the-right-way-to-go

Austria‘s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has called for fresh elections after his ruling coalition collapsed following an apparent video sting that forced his deputy to step down.

In a statement on Saturday, Kurz said he would ask the country’s President Alexander Van der Bellen to hold a new vote “as soon as possible”.

The call came hours after Heinz-Christian Strache, the vice chancellor and leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) resigned over a covert video that appeared to show him offering government contracts to a Russian woman in exchange for campaign help. 

Kurz, a conservative who formed a coalition with the FPO a year and a half ago, said the sting was the last straw in the relationship.

“Enough is enough … The serious part of this was the attitude towards abuse of power, towards dealing with taxpayers’ money, towards the media in this country,” said the chancellor, who heads the centre-right People’s Party.  


Kurz said he could not reach an agreement with the leadership of Strache’s FPO on carrying forward the coalition, adding that a possible coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats would derail the government’s programme of limiting debt and taxes.

Shortly after Kurz’s statement, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen expressed support for a snap vote and said he would meet with the chancellor again on Sunday to talk over the next steps.

Opposition parties including the Social Democrats, the liberal Neos party and the Greens have also called for fresh elections in the wake of the scandal.

‘Catastrophic’

The downfall of the Austrian coalition comes just a week before elections for the European Parliament and is a blow to one of the most successful anti-immigrant, nationalist parties that have surged across the continent in recent years. The FPO is a major part of a new nationalist grouping that aims to score record gains in the European vote.

Strache quit as vice chancellor and party leader earlier on Saturday after the video was released by two German news organisations. He acknowledged that the video was “catastrophic” but denied breaking the law.

In the footage – aired by the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and weekly Der Spiegel newspapers – Strache was seen meeting a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch in 2017,  shortly before the election that brought him to power. 

Strache and party colleague Johann Gudenus are heard telling the unnamed woman she could expect lucrative construction work if she bought Austria’s Kronen Zeitung newspaper and supported the Freedom Party. He is also seen discussing rules on party financing and how to work around them, although he also insisted on having to act legally.

The German publications did not reveal the source of the video. 



Heinz-Christian Strache resigned as vice chancellor on Saturday [Leonhard Foeger/Reuters]

In his resignation statement, Strache apologised but said he was set up in a “political assassination”. He conceded his behaviour in the video was “stupid, irresponsible and a mistake”.

Strache, whose party has a cooperation agreement with Russia‘s ruling United Russia party, said no money changed hands during the 2017 meeting.

He insisted the only crime that took place was illegally videotaping a private dinner party.

Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from London, described the timing of the scandal as “very bad” for Strache’s party because of the upcoming European elections. 

“This has been quite an extraordinary downfall for the leader of the Freedom Party … just only a week to go until the European elections,” Gallego said, adding the incident had raised “a lot of questions” about how the FPO “finances its own coffers”.

EU parliamentarian Hans-Olaf Henkel said the FPO “as well as many other right-wing parties in Europe are apparently much-supported by Russia”.

For the first time, with the Austrian far-right party, we have found a smoking gun and thats why Strache had to resign,” Henkel told Al Jazeera from the German capital, Berlin.

Source Article from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/austria-chancellor-kurz-announces-snap-election-190518170506716.html

Gilberto Olivas-Bejarano walks through his neighborhood in León, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Olivas-Bejarano was deported to Mexico after residing in the U.S. for 26 years.

Alicia Vera for NPR


hide caption

toggle caption

Alicia Vera for NPR

Gilberto Olivas-Bejarano walks through his neighborhood in León, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Olivas-Bejarano was deported to Mexico after residing in the U.S. for 26 years.

Alicia Vera for NPR

When 29-year-old Gilberto Olivas-Bejarano first returned to his birth home, the Mexican city of León, he didn’t speak the native language.

“I barely speak Spanish now,” he says.

He arrived in León alone, and today, nearly two years since his deportation, Olivas-Bejarano has still not seen his family in person.

Sitting in his small apartment, furnished with hand-me-downs, he pores over a homemade photo album of pictures printed off Facebook. It’s filled with memories from his former life in America — picnics, a Pride parade, birthdays with his family back in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In his home in León, Olivas-Bejarano looks through an album with photographs of his time in the United States.

Alicia Vera for NPR


hide caption

toggle caption

Alicia Vera for NPR

In his home in León, Olivas-Bejarano looks through an album with photographs of his time in the United States.

Alicia Vera for NPR

Now, he’s more than 1,000 miles away from them and part of something new: a generation of young people who are neither Mexican nor American, neither undocumented nor fully able to participate in the society around them. And they’re bringing a different attitude, and expectations, to the country of their birth.

Olivas-Bejarano’s parents left León for the United States when he was 2 years old. They ended up in Oklahoma, where Olivas-Bejarano and his U.S.-born siblings were raised.

Growing up in Oklahoma, Olivas-Bejarano’s parents had warned him that one day his citizenship might come into question.

But it wasn’t until he saw other students taking a drivers education course that it hit him: He was undocumented, and that meant he’d be afforded fewer opportunities than his American peers.

“I was all excited, like, ‘Oh, I get to sign up for this class.’ I would get my driver’s license. And that’s when my parents were like, ‘Well, no. You’re not going to go through the normal steps like everybody else. Things aren’t gonna be the same as everybody else.’ “

The sun enters Olivas-Bejarano’s kitchen in his León home, furnished with hand-me-downs.

Alicia Vera for NPR


hide caption

toggle caption

Alicia Vera for NPR

The sun enters Olivas-Bejarano’s kitchen in his León home, furnished with hand-me-downs.

Alicia Vera for NPR

That was his life, living in limbo, until a shift in immigration policy gave him a chance to stay in the United States.

The shift came with the creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, in 2012. The program allowed Olivas-Bejarano — and hundreds of thousands like him who were brought to the U.S. as children — to remain in the U.S. legally, free from the threat of having to leave the country they called home.

Olivas-Bejarano says he remembers the day that DACA was announced by then-President Barack Obama.

“I literally called my boss, and she didn’t even have to know what I was calling about. She was just like, ‘I know, I heard! I’m so excited, I’m so excited!’ “

“I was just like crying in my car after work, just like, ‘Oh my God, something’s finally happening.’ “

But then in 2014 and 2016, he was caught driving drunk, misdemeanors that the Obama administration didn’t prioritize as deportable offenses.

Those standards changed, however, with the Trump presidency. In January 2017, President Trump signed an executive order that expanded the reach of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to apprehend undocumented immigrants, regardless of any criminal record. Later that year, the president announced he would be phasing out DACA.

That June, Olivas-Bejarano’s DUI charges caught up to him. He’d just had a job interview for a bartender position, and when he walked outside and headed toward his car, he saw an ICE agent approaching him.

“As soon as I saw him it was kind of like this gut feeling. You’re like, ‘Oh crap.’ Like, ‘I hope he doesn’t come talk to me. I hope he doesn’t come talk to me.’ “

He wanted to run away. The agent proceeded to pull him out of his car and, as the restaurant staff looked on, put him in handcuffs.

Olivas-Bejarano says the toughest part about his immigration status is being apart from his family in Oklahoma. But he says the risk of reentering the U.S. illegally is too great for him.

Alicia Vera for NPR


hide caption

toggle caption

Alicia Vera for NPR

Olivas-Bejarano says the toughest part about his immigration status is being apart from his family in Oklahoma. But he says the risk of reentering the U.S. illegally is too great for him.

Alicia Vera for NPR

He describes that day as earth shattering.

“I had to come to this realization within like 15 minutes that, you know, you’re about to be deported.”

ICE detained him for several weeks, first in Oklahoma, then in Texas. Eventually, on his lawyer’s advice, he left the country voluntarily to leave open the possibility that he could one day legally return.

He was shackled and put on a bus that dropped him off at the southern border. He recalled pausing at the border crossing in Laredo, Texas, to take in an otherworldly scene.

“I remember looking over and seeing Texas and then looking over and seeing Mexico,” he says, “and just being like, ‘I wish I could just stay here and not have to worry about going anywhere.’ “

“And then actually crossing onto the Mexican border, it felt like going to another planet. It was two different worlds.”

In his new world, the country where he was born, he was again an outsider.

In November 2017, he moved to León, the center of the Mexican shoe industry, where there’s a large bilingual community that supports it. Still, Olivas-Bejarano’s accent stood out.

“Eventually my neighbors would start calling me ‘gringo,’ ” he says, amused. “Which is really weird to me because I always thought gringos were white people and then, here I am, obviously Mexican.”

He spent his first year in Mexico in denial, until part of his life in the U.S. entered his new world. On his 29th birthday, his friend Elise visited him in León.

“Actually seeing her in my house, actually holding her and hugging her and being like, ‘You’re here!’ It made it real. It was like, ‘No, this is your life now. You’re actually here, and your friend came to visit you. This isn’t a dream. Wake up.’ “

Nights are the loneliest, he says. When he calls his parents, about twice a week, he doesn’t talk about his life in León — he likes to pretend he’s just around the corner.

In reality, if his parents were to visit him in Mexico, they wouldn’t be able to return to the U.S., to their other children.

“The family part was probably the hardest thing … not being able to hug my mom or hug my dad or harass my brother,” he says, through laughter and tears.

Olivas-Bejarano shops for fruit at a market in León this month. His Spanish has improved in the nearly two years he has lived in Mexico, but his American accent is noticeable among a large bilingual community.

Alicia Vera for NPR


hide caption

toggle caption

Alicia Vera for NPR

Olivas-Bejarano shops for fruit at a market in León this month. His Spanish has improved in the nearly two years he has lived in Mexico, but his American accent is noticeable among a large bilingual community.

Alicia Vera for NPR

Despite the loss and sadness, he says he has no desire to sneak back into the United States.

For the first time in his life, he wants to make his own choice about crossing the border. “I’m actually against illegal immigration,” he says. “Too much of a risk for me. I wouldn’t want to end up in jail for 10 years.”

Instead, he says there should be better pathways to legal migration so that people don’t have to put their lives at risk.

But back in Washington, Congress and the Trump administration have struggled to identify what those pathways might look like. While DACA remains in place amid legal challenges to phase it out, the program doesn’t provide a track to citizenship. Meanwhile, the president’s latest immigration proposal, announced this past week, doesn’t address what to do with immigrants who have entered the country illegally.

Olivas-Bejarano walks home in León.

Alicia Vera for NPR


hide caption

toggle caption

Alicia Vera for NPR

Olivas-Bejarano walks home in León.

Alicia Vera for NPR

For now, Olivas-Bejarano’s English and his education have landed him a customer support position at Charly, a multimillion-dollar Mexican sportswear company.

Six months into the job, Olivas-Bejarano is already in the running for a promotion.

As he forges a new life for himself in León, Olivas-Bejarano says that, along with his young, educated immigrant peers, he has got a lot to offer Mexico.

“I mean, you can teach kids here in Mexico English just like you can teach kids in the States Spanish, but you can’t teach American culture, you can’t teach Hispanic culture.

“And that’s what I bring, is a different viewpoint,” he says. “Fresh ideas and … a drive.”

A drive that’s beginning to make its mark on Mexico.

NPR has been collaborating with PBS NewsHour, which will feature reporting by Lulu Garcia-Navarro on its broadcast on Monday, May 20, 2019.

NPR’s Emma Bowman produced this story for the Web.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/05/19/723739490/deported-after-living-in-the-u-s-for-26-years-he-navigates-a-new-life-in-mexico

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/19/politics/trump-neocons-iran-venezuela-intl/index.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Justin Amash, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, on Saturday became the first Republican lawmaker to say the president has engaged in impeachable behavior.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election reveals that Trump “engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment,” Amash, who has signaled he would consider running as a libertarian against Trump in the 2020 election, wrote on Twitter.

Mueller’s report “identifies multiple examples of conduct satisfying all the elements of obstruction of justice, and undoubtedly any person who is not the president of the United States would be indicted based on such evidence,” Amash wrote.

Trump has said Mueller’s report concluded there no obstruction of justice. Mueller’s report made no formal finding on that question, leaving the matter up to Congress.

Amash also wrote that “it is clear” that Attorney General William Barr intended to mislead the public about Mueller’s report in his conclusions and congressional testimony about it.

In his letter to Congress, Barr said he and his deputy Rod Rosenstein determined there was insufficient evidence to establish that the president committed criminal obstruction of justice, or acted unlawfully to impede the investigation.

Amash’s comments echoed the conclusions of many Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on May 8 that Trump was moving closer to impeachment with his efforts to thwart congressional subpoenas and obstruct lawmakers’ efforts to oversee his administration.

Still, Democrats are divided about impeachment and Pelosi also said impeachment proceedings would be “divisive” for the country.

The White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comments about Amash’s tweets.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee wrote on Twitter “it’s sad to see … Amash parroting the Democrats’ talking points on Russia.” She said the only people still concerned about the Russia investigation are Trump’s political foes “hoping to defeat him in 2020 by any desperate means possible.”

Amash, who represents Michigan’s 3rd congressional district, wrote that he had read Mueller’s full redacted report, but that few members of Congress had.

In February Amash became the lone Republican to co-sponsor a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives to reject the emergency Trump declared at the U.S.-Mexico border to build a wall there, in a stinging rebuke to the president..

Impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, Amash wrote on Saturday. But the risk during a time of extreme partisanship “is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct.”

Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Daniel Wallis

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-amash/first-republican-lawmaker-says-trump-engaged-in-impeachable-conduct-idUSKCN1SP01I

The party’s challenge was crystallized last week in a Quinnipiac survey of voters in Pennsylvania, one of the states that helped Mr. Trump win in 2016. The poll found that 77 percent of voters described their own financial situation as “excellent” or “good” — but that Mr. Trump would lose there by 11 percentage points against Joseph R. Biden Jr., one of the leading Democratic candidates.

Mr. Trump’s low approval ratings, which are at odds with normal ratings for a president in a humming economy, also point to the deep divisions in the country. The president’s erratic conduct and his gut instinct for issues of culture and identity, combined with the leftist energy in the Democratic Party and the chance that the Supreme Court could reconsider Roe v. Wade, will most likely further polarize an electorate that already cleaves along racial, gender and class lines when it comes to Mr. Trump.

“We’re pulling further apart, not together, and the traditional issues are being eclipsed — because if ‘peace and prosperity’ worked, there would still be a Republican majority in the House,” said Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, who envisioned “an impending clash out there with the two sides mobilized and demonizing the opposite side.”

It is, Mr. Cole added, “a long way from Ronald Reagan and ‘Morning in America.’”

Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign and congressional Republicans surely will highlight the country’s economic gains should they continue through 2020, of course, and will target Democrats over issues such as taxes and the size of government — particularly if a liberal like Senator Bernie Sanders or Senator Elizabeth Warren emerges as the Democratic nominee.

But both parties have overwhelming incentives to push next year’s election toward issues of the heart, not the head.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/us/politics/republicans-abortion-economy-issues.html

An accompanying release said the impact of more central bank intervention could impact “the future of [China’s] public debt ratio and China’s rating.”

Reductions in credit ratings often translate to higher interest rates for a country’s bonds. China’s debt is currently equivalent to $5.3 trillion in U.S. dollars, or about 43% of its GDP.

DBRS, the fourth-largest ratings agency in the world, has China rated “A,” which is its third-highest classification. However, it recently changed the outlook to negative as the tariff issues pile up.

“China remains a middle-income country that generally lacks the historic openness, institutional credibility and transparency of the major global financial centers,” the firm said in an earlier note.

Negotiators on both sides say they remain optimistic a deal can be reached, though markets have been focused on the more immediate impacts of existing tariffs and threats of ones to come.

The U.S. this month hiked its tariffs to 25% from 10% on $200 billion of Chinese goods. China retaliated by raising its tariff rate from 10% to 20%-25% on $60 billion of U.S. imports. The U.S. is seeking a number of concessions, particularly focused on opening Chinese markets and halting the theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfers.

Should the U.S. not get what it is seeking, President Donald Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on another $300 billion in Chinese imports. The U.S. had a $419.2 billion trade deficit with China in 2018, on $539.5 billion in imports and just $120.3 billion in exports. The deficit through the first three months of 2019 was just shy of $80 billion.

Other ratings agencies have noted the danger to further intensifying relations.

“An abrupt breakdown in trade talks, if that were to occur, will inject considerable policy uncertainty, increase risk aversion and lead to an abrupt repricing of risk assets globally,” Moody’s analyst Madhavi Bokil said in a note. “In China, increased US tariffs will have a significant negative effect on exports amid an already slowing economy.”

Fitch said China could offset the additional tariffs with more monetary easing, but noted it expects GDP to fall to 6.1% this year from 6.6% in 2018.

Should the U.S. extend its sanctions, that could knock off another half-point from the growth figure, the agency said.

“But if trade tensions eventually lead to blanket U.S. tariffs on all Chinese goods, the potential rating impact could be greater, as it may tempt the authorities to abandon their restrained approach to policy easing, and adopt credit stimulus measures that exacerbate the country’s already significant financial vulnerabilities,” said Brian Coulton, Fitch’s economist.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/china-faces-possible-hit-to-credit-rating-if-the-trade-war-isnt-resolved.html

May 18 at 5:08 PM

President Trump’s 2020 campaign spokeswoman joined other Republicans in her disapproval of Alabama’s ban on almost all abortions, and suggested the president shared her view.

During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday, Kayleigh McEnany said she disagreed with Alabama’s decision not to allow exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape and incest. The law will permit abortions only if the mother’s life is at risk.

“You know, I personally am for the exceptions,” McEnany said. “The president has been clear since the last campaign he’s for exceptions for rape and incest and life of the mother.”

When asked if the president would openly criticize the law, McEnany said she didn’t know, but reiterated that “he’s said repeatedly he’s for those three exceptions.”

Though the issue dominated headlines this week, Trump remained uncharacteristically silent. But other antiabortion conservatives have spoken out that the Alabama law goes too far. Those include televangelist Pat Robertson, who called it “extreme,” and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said it “goes further” than what he believes.

Other Republicans have tried to avoid the contentious issue with many dodging questions by saying it’s a states issue. The White House, when asked for Trump’s opinion about the law, changed the subject to focus on Democrats and late-term abortions.

“Unlike radical Democrats who have cheered legislation allowing a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments from birth, President Trump is protecting our most innocent and vulnerable, defending the dignity of life, and called on Congress to prohibit late-term abortions,” the White House said in a statement.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/18/trump-spokeswoman-suggests-hes-opposed-parts-alabamas-abortion-ban/

We’ve detected unusual activity from your computer network

To continue, please click the box below to let us know you’re not a robot.

Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-19/the-world-agrees-with-trump-on-one-thing-when-it-comes-to-iran

(CNN)More than 50 million people are under threat of hail, heavy rain, strong winds and isolated tornadoes Sunday as several storms move east, according to the National Weather Center.

    ‘);$vidEndSlate.removeClass(‘video__end-slate–inactive’).addClass(‘video__end-slate–active’);}};CNN.autoPlayVideoExist = (CNN.autoPlayVideoExist === true) ? true : false;var configObj = {thumb: ‘none’,video: ‘weather/2017/04/05/what-is-tornado-watch-warning-jpm-orig-mobile.cnn’,width: ‘100%’,height: ‘100%’,section: ‘domestic’,profile: ‘expansion’,network: ‘cnn’,markupId: ‘body-text_12’,theoplayer: {allowNativeFullscreen: true},adsection: ‘const-article-inpage’,frameWidth: ‘100%’,frameHeight: ‘100%’,posterImageOverride: {“mini”:{“width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170405165111-tornado-watch-v-warning-small-169.jpg”,”height”:124},”xsmall”:{“width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170405165111-tornado-watch-v-warning-medium-plus-169.jpg”,”height”:173},”small”:{“width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”http://www.noticiasdodia.onlinenewsbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/170405165111-tornado-watch-v-warning-large-169.jpg”,”height”:259},”medium”:{“width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170405165111-tornado-watch-v-warning-exlarge-169.jpg”,”height”:438},”large”:{“width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170405165111-tornado-watch-v-warning-super-169.jpg”,”height”:619},”full16x9″:{“width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170405165111-tornado-watch-v-warning-full-169.jpg”,”height”:900},”mini1x1″:{“width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170405165111-tornado-watch-v-warning-small-11.jpg”,”height”:120}}},autoStartVideo = false,isVideoReplayClicked = false,callbackObj,containerEl,currentVideoCollection = [],currentVideoCollectionId = ”,isLivePlayer = false,mediaMetadataCallbacks,mobilePinnedView = null,moveToNextTimeout,mutePlayerEnabled = false,nextVideoId = ”,nextVideoUrl = ”,turnOnFlashMessaging = false,videoPinner,videoEndSlateImpl;if (CNN.autoPlayVideoExist === false) {autoStartVideo = false;if (autoStartVideo === true) {if (turnOnFlashMessaging === true) {autoStartVideo = false;containerEl = jQuery(document.getElementById(configObj.markupId));CNN.VideoPlayer.showFlashSlate(containerEl);} else {CNN.autoPlayVideoExist = true;}}}configObj.autostart = CNN.Features.enableAutoplayBlock ? false : autoStartVideo;CNN.VideoPlayer.setPlayerProperties(configObj.markupId, autoStartVideo, isLivePlayer, isVideoReplayClicked, mutePlayerEnabled);CNN.VideoPlayer.setFirstVideoInCollection(currentVideoCollection, configObj.markupId);videoEndSlateImpl = new CNN.VideoEndSlate(‘body-text_12’);function findNextVideo(currentVideoId) {var i,vidObj;if (currentVideoId && jQuery.isArray(currentVideoCollection) && currentVideoCollection.length > 0) {for (i = 0; i 0) {videoEndSlateImpl.showEndSlateForContainer();if (mobilePinnedView) {mobilePinnedView.disable();}}}}callbackObj = {onPlayerReady: function (containerId) {var playerInstance,containerClassId = ‘#’ + containerId;CNN.VideoPlayer.handleInitialExpandableVideoState(containerId);CNN.VideoPlayer.handleAdOnCVPVisibilityChange(containerId, CNN.pageVis.isDocumentVisible());if (CNN.Features.enableMobileWebFloatingPlayer &&Modernizr &&(Modernizr.phone || Modernizr.mobile || Modernizr.tablet) &&CNN.VideoPlayer.getLibraryName(containerId) === ‘fave’ &&jQuery(containerClassId).parents(‘.js-pg-rail-tall__head’).length > 0 &&CNN.contentModel.pageType === ‘article’) {playerInstance = FAVE.player.getInstance(containerId);mobilePinnedView = new CNN.MobilePinnedView({element: jQuery(containerClassId),enabled: false,transition: CNN.MobileWebFloatingPlayer.transition,onPin: function () {playerInstance.hideUI();},onUnpin: function () {playerInstance.showUI();},onPlayerClick: function () {if (mobilePinnedView) {playerInstance.enterFullscreen();playerInstance.showUI();}},onDismiss: function() {CNN.Videx.mobile.pinnedPlayer.disable();playerInstance.pause();}});/* Storing pinned view on CNN.Videx.mobile.pinnedPlayer So that all players can see the single pinned player */CNN.Videx = CNN.Videx || {};CNN.Videx.mobile = CNN.Videx.mobile || {};CNN.Videx.mobile.pinnedPlayer = mobilePinnedView;}if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (jQuery(containerClassId).parents(‘.js-pg-rail-tall__head’).length) {videoPinner = new CNN.VideoPinner(containerClassId);videoPinner.init();} else {CNN.VideoPlayer.hideThumbnail(containerId);}}},onContentEntryLoad: function(containerId, playerId, contentid, isQueue) {CNN.VideoPlayer.showSpinner(containerId);},onContentPause: function (containerId, playerId, videoId, paused) {if (mobilePinnedView) {CNN.VideoPlayer.handleMobilePinnedPlayerStates(containerId, paused);}},onContentMetadata: function (containerId, playerId, metadata, contentId, duration, width, height) {var endSlateLen = jQuery(document.getElementById(containerId)).parent().find(‘.js-video__end-slate’).eq(0).length;CNN.VideoSourceUtils.updateSource(containerId, metadata);if (endSlateLen > 0) {videoEndSlateImpl.fetchAndShowRecommendedVideos(metadata);}},onAdPlay: function (containerId, cvpId, token, mode, id, duration, blockId, adType) {/* Dismissing the pinnedPlayer if another video players plays an Ad */CNN.VideoPlayer.dismissMobilePinnedPlayer(containerId);clearTimeout(moveToNextTimeout);CNN.VideoPlayer.hideSpinner(containerId);if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(true);videoPinner.animateDown();}}},onAdPause: function (containerId, playerId, token, mode, id, duration, blockId, adType, instance, isAdPause) {if (mobilePinnedView) {CNN.VideoPlayer.handleMobilePinnedPlayerStates(containerId, isAdPause);}},onTrackingFullscreen: function (containerId, PlayerId, dataObj) {CNN.VideoPlayer.handleFullscreenChange(containerId, dataObj);if (mobilePinnedView &&typeof dataObj === ‘object’ &&FAVE.Utils.os === ‘iOS’ && !dataObj.fullscreen) {jQuery(document).scrollTop(mobilePinnedView.getScrollPosition());playerInstance.hideUI();}},onContentPlay: function (containerId, cvpId, event) {var playerInstance,prevVideoId;if (CNN.companion && typeof CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout === ‘function’) {CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘restoreEpicAds’);}clearTimeout(moveToNextTimeout);CNN.VideoPlayer.hideSpinner(containerId);if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(true);videoPinner.animateDown();}}},onContentReplayRequest: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(true);var $endSlate = jQuery(document.getElementById(containerId)).parent().find(‘.js-video__end-slate’).eq(0);if ($endSlate.length > 0) {$endSlate.removeClass(‘video__end-slate–active’).addClass(‘video__end-slate–inactive’);}}}},onContentBegin: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {if (mobilePinnedView) {mobilePinnedView.enable();}/* Dismissing the pinnedPlayer if another video players plays a video. */CNN.VideoPlayer.dismissMobilePinnedPlayer(containerId);CNN.VideoPlayer.mutePlayer(containerId);if (CNN.companion && typeof CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout === ‘function’) {CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘removeEpicAds’);}CNN.VideoPlayer.hideSpinner(containerId);clearTimeout(moveToNextTimeout);CNN.VideoSourceUtils.clearSource(containerId);jQuery(document).triggerVideoContentStarted();},onContentComplete: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {if (CNN.companion && typeof CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout === ‘function’) {CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘restoreFreewheel’);}navigateToNextVideo(contentId, containerId);},onContentEnd: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(false);}}},onCVPVisibilityChange: function (containerId, cvpId, visible) {CNN.VideoPlayer.handleAdOnCVPVisibilityChange(containerId, visible);}};if (typeof configObj.context !== ‘string’ || configObj.context.length 0) {configObj.adsection = window.ssid;}CNN.autoPlayVideoExist = (CNN.autoPlayVideoExist === true) ? true : false;CNN.VideoPlayer.getLibrary(configObj, callbackObj, isLivePlayer);});CNN.INJECTOR.scriptComplete(‘videodemanddust’);

    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/19/us/midwest-weather-sunday-wxc/index.html

    Former FBI Director James Comey fired back at President Trump in a tweet on Friday.

    “The president claiming the FBI’s investigation was ‘TREASON’ reminds me that a Russian once said, ‘A lie told often enough becomes the truth.’ That shouldn’t happen in America. Who will stand up?” Comey tweeted

    Earlier on Friday, Trump called the FBI’s early investigations into potential Russian influence in his 2016 campaign “treason.” 

    “My Campaign for President was conclusively spied on,” Trump tweeted. “Nothing like this has ever happened in American Politics. A really bad situation. TREASON means long jail sentences, and this was TREASON!” 

    RELATED: James Comey testifies on Russian interference in US election

    Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, center delivers opening remarks before the start of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing with James Comey, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), not pictured, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, June 8, 2017. Comey in prepared remarks to the committee said U.S. President Donald Trump sought his loyalty and urged him to drop the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Photographer: Zach Gibson/Bloomberg via Getty Images




    That accusation closely followed news that Attorney General William Barr has opened an inquiry into the matter.

    The Wall Street Journal reports: “Barr has tapped the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to study the origins of a 2016 counterintelligence investigation that conducted what he has called ‘spying’ on people affiliated with the Trump campaign, a person familiar with the decision said.”

    Trump has long been calling the integrity and intentions of the bureau’s leadership into question.

    “The rank and file of the FBI are great people who are disgusted with what they are learning about Lyin’ James Comey and the so-called ‘leaders’ of the FBI,” Trump noted via Twitter in January. “Twelve have been fired or forced to leave. They got caught spying on my campaign and then called it an investigation. Bad!”

    Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/05/18/comey-fires-back-at-trump-over-treason-accusation/23729424/

    Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/19/politics/trump-neocons-iran-venezuela-intl/index.html